SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 two-stage rocket to orbit on Tuesday, offering a free ride for the AMOS-17 communications satellite. It was the third flight for the Falcon 9 booster and to get the satellite to orbit SpaceX had to do away with the booster — so we don’t get to see SpaceX pull off another dazzling booster return. However, we have got the next best thing: A droneship capturing the rocket’s fairing.
Rocket fairing falling from space (higher res) pic.twitter.com/sa1j10qAWi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2019
The fairing is part of the protective cover at the top of the Falcon 9, which shields payloads as they’re lifted into orbit. Once the rocket punches out of the atmosphere and into space, the fairing breaks in half and falls back to Earth. A droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, then attempts to catch the fairing with a giant net.
SpaceX managed to successfully catch a fairing following a launch last month, and this is the first time we’ve seen what that looks like. As TechCrunch has pointed out, this is a victory for SpaceX, which plans to reuse the fairings. Musk previously said the company essentially throws away $6 million every time a fairing crashes into the ocean. SpaceX competitor Rocket Lab plans to catch its fairings with helicopters, but we haven’t seen it do so quite yet.
